It just never, ever ends: Francis has had a busy week

He began the week by pretending to see deep inside the heart of every business person who fails to provide health insurance, and finding mortal sin. He finished by implying that Christ actually gave His blessing to divorce, rather than castigating it in the harshest terms. Before I get to the quotes, can I just say, someone capable of turning Scripture and Tradition this upside down and placing it at war with itself, is capable of literally anything.

This morning Pope Francis gave a homily at Casa Santa Marta where he appeared to claim that Jesus approved of the Mosaic Law on divorce on the grounds of mercy. Or, as Francis put it, Jesus enunciated the “official” truth while then going above it or beyond it in order to engage in accompaniment, integration and discernment.

This is of course the very opposite of what is described in Matthew 19 and Mark 10. It is the Pharisees who attempt to use the Mosaic Law to justify divorce. And it is Jesus who rebukes them for it.

The Pope is fond of accusing his enemies of “casuistry” but it is he who consistently engages in it. This twisting of one of the most famous exchanges in the New Testament is striking in its attempt to mislead.

From the homily:

“But Jesus,” Pope Francis continued, “so merciful, He is so great, that he never, never, never, closes the door to sinners.” And so He does not limit Himself to proclaiming the truth of God, but goes on to ask the Pharisees what Moses had established in the Law. And when the Pharisees responded that Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce, Jesus replied that this was permitted “because of the hardness of your hearts.” That is, the Pope explained, Jesus always distinguished between the truth and “human weakness” without “twisting words.”

In the world in which we live, with this culture of the provisional, this reality of sin is so strong. But Jesus, recalling Moses, tells us: “But there is hardness of heart, there is sin, something can be done: forgiveness, understanding, accompaniment, integration, discernment of these cases… But always… But the truth is never sold. And Jesus is capable of stating this very great truth, and at the same time being so understanding with sinners, with the weak.

That would be to prevaricate, to obfuscate the Truth with deliberate intent to mislead. Is that what Francis is doing?

I am of two minds, kind of. My rational, evidentiary side says: absolutely! These 60s Jesuits are not dumb. They know precisely what they are doing, and they do it for very specific reasons, to force the Church to fit into their ideological preferences. They have been at this game for a long time, and the consistency of their arguments and willingness to make both themselves and Christ liars from one moment to the next – whichever they perceive as aiding their progressive cause the most – shows them to be agendized ideologues in single-minded pursuit of a goal.

But the other part – the merciful part – of me says, well, maybe he’s imbibed such hideous, nonsensical, contrarian nonsense for so long, Francis is not only incapable of consistent reasoning, he doesn’t even realize when he’s turning logic and the plain meaning of Scripture on its head.

I have a very hard time believing that, however. The twists and turns of Francis’ logic are simply too consistent, and too aligned with a particular goal in mind, to be honest mistakes of zeal and bad formation. That is to say, it’s well past time my doubts have been taken out behind the woodshed, and put down.

To wit:

According to the National Catholic Reporter, the pontiff made the comments while delivering a homily at Casa Santa Marta on Thursday evening. He reportedly outlined a hypothetical situation in which a business employs someone from September to June but denies them health care coverage during their tenure. Francis observed that when the job ends, the worker “must eat air.”

“Exploitation of people today is a true slavery,” the pope said, referring to the suffering of workers who aren’t treated fairly. “We thought that slaves do not exist anymore. They exist. It’s true, people don’t go to Africa to take them and then sell them in America, no. But it’s in our cities.”

“Living off the blood of the people: This is a mortal sin,” he added. “And it takes much patience, much restitution to convert ourselves from this sin.”

As usual, Francis fails to make a direct point. He strongly implies, however, that failing to pay what he feels are sufficient wages (whatever that means), or only employing people on a seasonal, need-based basis (so teachers are mistreated?), or failing to provide health insurance, constitute a mortal sin.

Note the dichotomy, and note the perfect correlation with progressive (Leftist) thought: sins of the flesh are infinitely excusable, if they are even sins at all (and not occasions for “accompaniment” and “mercy”), while prudential matters that may or may not be sinful, being entirely dependent on circumstance, are not just sins, but mortal sins. Whatever happened to “who am I to judge?”

Anyway, I don’t want to beat this horse too much. As I said at the top, every stinkin’ week it’s the same thing, some new outrage, some new attack. I don’t think it any coincidence that the despicable Fr. Thomas Rosica went on the offensive this week against Catholic blogs, either, castigating them/us for everything from being a “cesspool of hatred, venom, and vitriol,” to being “very disturbed, broken, and angry individuals who never found a pulpit in real life.” Once again, where is the mercy, where is the accompaniment, where the endless apologias? The truth is, those are reserved for those who serve, or advance, the ideological agenda. Opponents will be crushed.

Talk to the Franciscans of the Immaculate about that. They weren’t even given the chance to be opponents of the new authoritarian regime, they were destroyed in advance as warning to all others.